


Molt

by Dribbledscribbles



Category: The Magnus Archives
Genre: Arachnophobia, Body Horror, General Unpleasantness, M/M, because yeah, this one gets mean, you ever make yourself so sad with a one-shot you have to write a fix-it fic for your own story?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24447967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dribbledscribbles/pseuds/Dribbledscribbles
Summary: It had been baffling, really. Such loyalty to someone who’d treated him so badly.At the start, anyway. Time had passed. Events had transpired and threads of fate had drawn tighter. Heartstrings, strong as steel, fine as silk, weaving around the initial office crush until it became something new.Jonathan Sims loved Martin Blackwood. He was wound snug as a ring on his heavy little finger. Especially here, now, in the Changed world. The Archivist, bound to his hip. Never straying. Good and close and loyal.Just as Mother wanted.
Relationships: Jonathan Sims/Martin Blackwood, spoiler/spoiler
Comments: 146
Kudos: 293





	1. Chapter 1

It happened while Jon was in the middle of a statement, of course. A recording. Monologue. Purging. Whatever.

All the worst things in their lives had happened while he was paralyzed by the Archivist’s compulsion to articulate the nearest, succulent horrors to the Eye. 

And, Martin will think far too late, always when he took a walk. To go strolling up to the little shop, to look for good cows, to avoid hearing the vitriol of the Fears’ victims pour from Jon’s mouth. Pick an excuse. There always was one.

A rotary phone was waiting this time. Martin might have found it cute under other circumstances. It jingled and jangled until he finally sighed and picked it up.

“Annabelle.”

“Hello to you too. Do we actually get to talk this time around or are you busy?” An airy giggle came down the line. “As if I have to ask. I have to admit, I’m a little jealous. Trophy wifedom gets a bad reputation. Nothing but free time while the S/O gets the work done—,”

“If that’s the best you have—,”

“It’s not. And I do apologize; that was a cheap dig. The lowest of the low-hanging fruit. I’m a touch rusty when it comes to small talk these days. My crowd isn’t exactly the talkative type and it is _so_ hard to get a proper conversation going when everyone’s just got chelicerae and no vocal cords, you know?”

“I can imagine.” Martin looked back to Jon. That narrow silhouette against the Staring sky, speaking grimly into the recorder. The Panopticon Watched him eagerly. Its tower was closer now. Much closer. They’d be passing through proper civilization soon. At least, the terrain that might have actual neighborhoods and cityscapes to trudge through. He sighed. “What do you want? What, exactly? And before you do the whole obfuscating runaround, just know that I am in no mood for—,”

“Evil monstrous patter? I know, Martin. I’m not Elias. Save the monologues for posh old bastards who make love to their mirrors, right? Right. So.” Martin heard shifting on the other side of the line. The scurrying of tiny legs over the receiver. “Have you thought about it?”

“About what?”

“Assistance. Would you like mine?”

“About as much as the Trojans would like a new wooden horse.”

“…So, yes?”

“ _No._ No, I do not want whatever kind of weird arachnid-based, trap-filled ‘help’ you would pretend to give me that would ultimately screw Jon and I and everyone else who isn’t with the Web over. _Thanks._ ”

“Martin, while I commend your common sense, you’re looking at this like I’m going to, I don’t know, hand you a Leitner or paste some extra eyes to your head. That’s not what I’m offering.”

“Which means I have to ask, ‘Golly, Annabelle, what _are_ you offering, then?’”

“No one said you _had_ to ask, Martin. But since you did, what I’m offering is this: the Mnemosyne treatment.”

“…The what?”

“Right, sorry. Basically, it’d be me just pulling the right mental strings to help you remember something useful. Something vital that even Elias missed while you were at the Institute, no matter how many little scans he did. Something even Jon can’t See.”

“Spider webs in my brain. Couldn’t possibly end badly.”

On the other end of the line, Annabelle sighed. More tiny legs scurried.

“Martin, I’m not talking about brainwashing.”

“Said the puppet master.”

“Martin—,”

“Not interested. Bye—,”

“Where did you grow up, Martin?”

“…What?”

“Where did you grow up as a boy?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“You don’t have to tell me. I just want to know if _you_ know.”

“Of course I do. And you already know, obviously, so: Devon. Shock.”

“You’re lying.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re a fine actor, Martin, but you can’t bullshit a bullshitter. You recall Devon as a factoid. A piece of trivia. That’s where you supposedly set up dear old mum in the care home—,”

“The hell do you mean ‘supposedly—,’”

“—far away from work, where no one would think to check in, to check that you were checking in on her, what with the Archive’s nosy workers being so curious—,”

“ _What?_ What the hell does that m—,”

“You did not grow up in Devon, Martin.”

That actually surprised a laugh out of him. He looked to Jon again. Still talking. The Eye still Stared at him and him alone.

“Wow. Okay. This is some next level gaslighting. Really have to applaud you.”

“Oh? Then what _do_ you recall about Devon? What school did you drop out of as a teen for your mother’s sake? Where did you get ice cream on your birthday? Give me a detail.”

“I—it was—,”

Martin stopped. In his head, a wretched blankness began to blossom. 

No, that was the wrong word. Blossoming implied a new thing—this felt old. Like a canvas sheet coated with dust. 

“What did you do?”

“Pardon?”

“ _What_ did you _do_ to me?”

“Nothing, Martin. Now, come on, this one should be easy. When did you first know you were in love with Jonathan Sims? First month on the job? First week?”

“I-I—you—,”

He didn’t know. Rather, he wasn’t sure how to answer. Because the truest answer that came to him was that it had been _always_. Always, always that love had been there. Since day one. Even at the man’s prickliest, Martin had been in love with him. Somehow. But for some reason—

“How far back does your memory go before the Archives, Martin? I don’t just mean a list of biographical facts and bullet points. What actual experiences in your life do you remember in all their sights and sounds and sensations from before you handed over that flimsy CV to the Magnus Institute?”

“Shut up. Shut. Up.”

His hand shook around the handset, ready to slam it down on the rotary base with a theatric clang. Instead he held it tighter. It felt glued to his palm. To his ear.

“Okay, relax, we’ll go a little simpler. Post-hiring, post-simpering crush. Do you remember what Jon was like when he was trying so desperately to investigate the Fears, to put just the right clues together to make sense of the rituals and his own nature and all that existential mess? He wasn’t eating properly then, right? You had to go and tattle on him for taking live meals instead of paper substitutes. Otherwise, he would’ve been healthy enough to just magically Know all the information he needed.”

“That was—were you the one who—,”

“No, Martin. Mother and I have plenty of strings, but we don’t pull them all the time. That one was, ironically, the Eye’s influence. Jon’s told you before, I’m sure. He’s felt specific statements call out to him and Archival impulses tug at his mind. The Eye has steered him as surely as the Web ever managed. It certainly didn’t want him to find out about any of the loopholes that might have freed him from his role as Archivist. Neither blinding nor the death-of-the-Archivist exit strategy. Because, much as the Eye loves Terrible Knowledge, not all of it is beneficial to its cause. 

“The Eye would never dare risk losing Jon. Not for anything. So, it directed him. Turned his prying eyes this way instead of that. Not blinding him, exactly, but making sure not to feed him any Beholding information that would hinder the Eye’s desires. Gaps in the intel, you know.

“And you, Martin. You, who have been under the Eye’s Watch for just as long? Do you think it wouldn’t smother your memories if there was something dangerous lurking inside them? Something that may—gasp!—actually be useful to yours and Jon’s desire to save the world from its relentless Gaze?”

“…It might. Sure. But I doubt you’d clear things up for me out of the goodness of your heart. Whatever it is I’m—I’m missing, I don’t have to be omniscient to know it’ll be less about damaging the Eye and more about helping the Web.”

“Provided you even use said information. But I will tell you this much for free. You will want those smothered memories on hand if and when you finally make it to the Panopticon. Because, yeah, Jon’s powerful. Jon is the Archivist, the Eye’s very dearest avatar. 

“But Jonah Magnus sees you coming, doesn’t he? He’ll have something planned. Perhaps some weighty power of his own to match Jon’s. In an eldritch Staring contest, there’s no way to Know who will win. You’ll need an edge. Two against one is always better odds.”

“And, what? I’ll just happen to find some magic cheat code lurking in my subconscious? Or you’ll plant something in my head to make me—,”

“Bournemouth.”

“What?”

“You lived in Bournemouth, Martin.”

As soon as she said it, Martin knew it was true. Not the way he would simply know a fact. He _saw_ it. Saw the view of a quiet old street, the weathered red door of his house. Heard children playing somewhere far off in a park somewhere. Smelled sea salt on the air. 

That single snippet of experience hovered there behind his eyelids, at once ancient and fresh. 

“You planted that.”

“No, I didn’t. It was just a reminder. Again, you can always have Jon fact-check for you. Anyway, the full flashback montage can’t happen at a distance. I’d have to be there in person. And you’d have to consent. Wouldn’t want to go taking liberties with the Archivist’s property.”

“I am _not_ his—,”

“Damsel? Valet? Tagalong? His _reason to stay human_? You can be all those things and still be dead weight, Martin. Because that’s what you know you are under all the mush and pining and assurances. It’s really no surprise you got your hackles up with Oliver Banks nearby. Never seen a prettier grim reaper. Nor a more potentially powerful partner, so to speak. I’d say you were lucky that he’s been made stationary by his new role, but you two really could have used his kind of power on your side going forward.

“Because when you get to the Panopticon, Jonah Magnus will take one look at you and see a human shield. You won’t be able to hide behind a few burnt pieces of paper or call the cops on him. You’ll need to be able to actually _do_ something besides get yourself abducted by an evil sea captain or swatted aside with a blast of psychic trauma. You don’t need the Eye to tell you that, do you?”

Martin bit his tongue so hard it almost bled. He breathed. Counted to ten. Then:

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you doing this? What is it you think you have to gain besides another round of—of stupid, eldritch mind games, and trying to ruin our lives just that little bit more? Hm? You and your Spider and all your goddamn machinations have already won, right? You’re here! Good for you! So why are you doing this?”

“Martin, I’d think that you of all people would know better. Much as the Spider is a menace to its prey, it’s a helper to everyone else. To the ‘ecosystem,’ such as we have now. We are an Entity of order. We’ve been pest control for as long as there have been pests. Keeping everything from falling into chaos. I’d call us a necessary evil, but we really aren’t that; more a,” there was another shift, the sound of a hand gesturing blithely and tugging on silk, “necessary unpleasantness. You can’t begin to imagine how much messier things might be if it weren’t for the Mother tidying things up around the Fears’ domains. Containing spill overs, halting turf wars before they can happen. The Fears are greedy things, even now.

“And Jonah Magnus playing king of the castle is hardly helping matters. I don’t care how much the man likes paperwork, he’s a shit CEO. He’d be playing the violin with Nero in another life.

“Still,” she sighed, “if you need a more believable motive than us just not liking the mess, how about the fact that we don’t appreciate having the pompous, preening, Victorian era prick taking the credit for our work. The Mother of Puppets has a notorious yen for grudges, and if he and his sky-high voyeur can be dealt a blow from aiding you and Jon, we’re all for it. Are you, Martin?”

Martin bit into the insides of his cheeks. He looked to Jon. His posture had changed. No longer looking like a ghastly scarecrow, but huddled into himself, cradling the recorder close for his final comments. Just about done.

“Martin?”

“I’m not an idiot, you know. I do remember the last time some other mastermind played it safe by keeping well out of reach of Jon’s mindreading.”

“Because Elias couldn’t risk the grand scheme coming to light. I know. But I’m willing to stand right there, in full View of Jon while we do this. I will tell him the truth just as I’m telling it to you. _I want you to remember what you’ve forgotten, Martin._ Simple as that. Interested?”

“Not unless Jon is—,”

“Not unless I’m what?”

Martin made a very interesting noise as he whirled around. Jon was there with his eyes on the phone. He opened his mouth, then stopped. His face scrunched and darkened as his Gaze traveled away into the canopy of the grove they stood beside.

“Annabelle. I can See you.”

Laughter bubbled up out of Martin’s phone. It doubled as a willowy shape ambled out of the shadows, eight oil-bubble eyes gleaming. 

Annabelle Cane held an old flip phone, half a dozen accessories dangling from it. All spiders. Martin rolled his eyes and hung up as she clapped her phone shut. 

“Because I’m letting you, Jon. Hi. Sorry our first real meeting’s not quite as dramatic as the situation warrants, but,” she shrugged and a hundred spiders repositioned themselves on her, “I felt something a little more low-key was called for.” 

“Right. Martin, get behind me. I don’t want any of the mess to land on you.”

Annabelle held up her over-knuckled hands, the picture of arachnid innocence.

“Hey, hey, I come in peace. And really, after all the times I’ve tweaked things to save your life, I think I’m owed at least a minute to chat.”

“Oh, yes. Saved my life from the monsters that you dangled me in front of like raw steak on a string. Thanks so much. Why are you here, Annabelle?”

“I want to help Martin. You know,” she turned her array of glassy eyes on Martin, beaming, “like we discussed.”

“What.” Jon turned to Martin who was going a very bad shade of pink. “ _What?_ ”

“Th-that’s not—,” Martin started, stopped, started again, “I mean, I wanted to check with you if—,”

“If _what_?”

“If she’s telling the truth about something. The, uh,” Martin held his fingers up in quotation marks, “ _assistance_ she wants to give me.”

“I am—,” Annabelle held her hands up again as Jon and Martin glared. “Right, sorry. I’ll wait.” So saying, she plodded up the side of a tree and assumed an idle crouching position against the bark. From spinneret fingers she wove out a game of cat’s cradle. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

They looked at her a moment. Then Martin leaned to Jon’s ear.

“So?”

“So, what?”

“Can you look in her head at all?”

“Have been since I Saw her.”

“And?”

“It’s hard. I can See facts in her, but I can’t See everything. It’s all Web in there. Hard to spot unless I turn my Eye at just the right angle. She—she wants to help you remember something. That’s coming in clear.”

“What else?”

“She—oh. Okay, no, not buying that for a second—,”

“What?”

“It’s true, Jon,” Annabelle sing-songed from her tree.

“The hell it is—,”

“Jon, what is it?”

Jon only Looked harder at her. Annabelle’s face pursed as if she had a headache.

“It’s not going to change if you Glare at it, Jon. The truth’s the truth, and that’s all the Eye is interested in. Honestly, I’m a little stung that you don’t believe it.”

“Maybe because all evidence, logic, and basic common sense points to the contrary.”

“Uh, hi! Hey!” Martin said to either or both of them. “Care to let me in on this?”

Jon scowled harder. Annabelle pretended to sulk, then shrugged.

“I can tell him if you’d prefer not to—,”

“The Web wants to help me,” Jon bit out. “According to her, it wants me to be happy.”

“Don’t see why that’s so hard to believe, Jon. Sure, we’re unorthodox by human standards, but by Spider standards we’ve always doted on you. The Mother loves you. Truly.”

“The way you’d love a toy.”

“A collector’s item, even,” she laughed. “But no. You’re far more to her than that, Jon, puppet or no.”

“Ah. An appliance, then. My mistake.”

“Jon…”

“Why do you want to stick your fingers in Martin’s brain?”

Annabelle made a face.

“Ugh. Make it sound a little more distasteful, why don’t you? You Saw for yourself that isn’t what I want to do. You Saw why too.”

“Yes. To ‘help’ Martin. Which will, by extension, ‘help’ me. Make me ‘happy.’”

“Exactly.”

“According to you and the Web.”

“Yes. Seems fairly straightforward.”

“Mmhmm.” Jon turned to Martin. “No. Absolutely not.”

“But—but, if she is telling the truth, then—,”

“ _Her_ version of the truth. Not even a whole truth, because, just as she expected, I can’t See the whole Design going around those two points. All I Know is that, yes, whatever this memory trick—,”

“Not a trick…” Annabelle hummed.

“Not asking you,” Jon hummed back. “Whatever she means to do to you, yes, it would have some kind of benefit. It will do…something to make you stronger? Somehow? And that will somehow domino into me being glad.”

Martin looked from Jon to Annabelle. She waved. Back to Jon:

“…Isn’t that good?”

“Sure. The same way me finding our way back out of the Lonely was ‘good.’ Martin, look at me.” Jon finally tore his Gaze from Annabelle to look up at him, his Eyes now only his eyes. “This. Is. A. Trick. Even if, in their deranged point-of-view, this is in any way meant as a benevolent act, it is from the Web’s perspective. Cats think it’s a kindness to leave you animal carcasses on your pillow.”

“I get that, but—,”

“But _what_?”

Martin thought of a home he hadn’t realized he’d had until a minute ago. Of the sudden, creeping murkiness surrounding his invisible father and scathing mother and the fact that he could no longer recall the name of the hospital she’d died in. Could not say anything about his history pre-Archive that was not a scatter of random facts with no actual memories attached to them.

Nothing but a house with a red door and the smell of Bournemouth’s briny air. 

“If there’s something in my head that the Eye kept hidden from me because it could help us—,”

“Martin—,”

“Help me to be more than your luggage—,”

“You know that isn’t—,”

“W-Whatever’s in me, it was always there, right? This vital pile of memories that I-I’ve just blanked on, completely, and—and—,”

“Martin, I can help with that. You know I—,”

“You can’t, Jon. Your power is from the Eye. It won’t show you what it won’t even let me remember. I—oh, God.”

No. No, not that too. Why? What would be the point? _Why?_

“What? Martin, what?”

“I can’t remember her.”

“Who—,”

“Jon, I-I can’t remember her name.” Martin’s breath was coming out thick now. Coarse. “I can’t remember my mother’s name. I don’t—even her face isn’t there—,”

It was the Not-Them all over again, but worse. No matter how he tried, where he looked in his head, there were simply no memories left besides those that existed after and around the Magnus Institute’s drama. Just notes. Tally marks. A script to follow with no visual cues. Why? Why would the Eye redact so much of him? 

“Martin, please, we can do this somewhere else, away from her. We can—,”

“I want to do it.”

“What?”

“I want. To do it.”

“Martin, you really don’t. You want nothing to do with the Web. Period.”

“Of course I don’t. But your Eye isn’t going to help.”

“Wh—it’s not _my_ Eye—,”

“You know what I mean. You’re not going to catch anything or reveal any buried secrets. Did you even notice the gaps in my head before now?”

“I—,”

“You didn’t.”

“You asked me not to—,”

“Before that, Jon. You should’ve noticed something. Hell, _Elias_ should have. But this is—it isn’t—,” Martin hitched in a hot breath. Jon’s hands tried to climb into his, gripping.

“Martin, please. We can fix this ourselves. We don’t need her—,”

“Do you Know that?”

“Martin…”

“You’re right here. She’s right here. If—if she tries anything funny, you can, you know…”

“Smite me for my sins?” Jon and Martin turned to glower. Annabelle had repositioned herself to be hanging upside down from a branch. “Don’t mind me.” She flapped a hand at them, raining a few house spiders as she did. “Carry on.”

Martin breathed heavily through his nose, trying not to shake.

“I’m missing something the Eye doesn’t want me to know. Several things, apparently. If that information can help us…”

Jon made a noise.

“What?”

“Fine, I said. Fine.” He leveled a Glare like a glacier at Annabelle. “I assume I don’t have to explain exactly what will happen if you get _creative_ with this?”

“Yes, yes, you’ll swat me with your metaphorical rolled up magazine, I know. It really won’t be anything fancy, I assure you. Like he said, it’s all old news I’d be uncovering. Won’t even take that long. Not much different from whipping off a tablecloth.” Annabelle dropped from the tree as she spoke, righted herself and stretched until she popped a dozen joints she shouldn’t have. “So! I have everyone’s permission to lend my aid to the cause? Yes?”

Jon and Martin looked at her.

“Excellent! Martin, may I see one of your hands, please?”

Martin offered her his left hand. Jon’s hand welded to his right. 

Annabelle took Martin’s hand gently, barely touching. She made an expression of faux concentration, nodding to herself.

“Hmm. Hmmmm. Yes, that’s a hand.”

“Yeah, it is. What does this have to do with my memory loss?”

“Nothing yet. It’s just, it’s rather full. All of you is. That’s where all your memories have been stuffed, Martin. They’re not in your head. They’re everywhere else.”

Jon gawked at her.

“…You’re not lying.”

“No, I’m not.”

“How the hell are you not—,”

“And the key to putting all those memories back where they’re supposed to be is right,” Annabelle lightly clapped her other palm against Martin’s sandwiching his hand between hers, “here.” Both her hands came away. She had left a tiny scrap of paper in his palm.

On it was what looked like an ink drawing of a small red hat. 

For just a moment, Martin wanted to ask if this whole thing had been her idea of a joke. That moment passed. 

When it did, Martin remembered everything.

Another moment followed this, during which he was too terrified to scream.

That moment passed too.

To define all of what happened next, in all its sensory factors, would have been too much for anyone other than its current witnesses. 

Annabelle Cane could stomach it, for it was the desired outcome she and Mother had planned for.

The Archivist could have stomached it, for they were the Archivist.

Sadly, Jonathan Sims was on the outside of the Archivist at the time, and so had to witness it as well. 

It was fast, was the thing. So fast and so slow all at once. There was no room in Jonathan Sims to make good on his promise to Annabelle, no space in his mind for anything other than the vision of Martin Blackwood in his horrendous fit of remembrance.

Because with memory came reality. And there were so many realities that needed facing now.

Reality: The Eye had never hidden anything from him. 

Reality: There was good reason to not remember his history, his childhood, anything at all beyond the text of a biography. There was no history to remember. No childhood. No father, no mother. No school to drop out of. No existence before the Magnus Institute. Even with all the feelings and listed interactions and carefully-placed bait of trauma for Elias Bouchard to paw at, there was no meat under that skin.

Reality: Martin Blackwood had performed the fairy tale-impossible. He had fallen in love with Jonathan Sims at first sight. The perfect reason to want to be close, to help, to be drawn to him and to draw him in turn. It had taken some time to do the latter. Just the right threads pulled, the right events orchestrated, the right chemistry concocted. But they’d gotten there. Jon and Martin, Martin and Jon. Soulmates. Tied together by Fateful red strings. 

Reality: He could lie as easy as breathing. A fine actor, was Martin Blackwood. So good, even _he’d_ believed he was Martin Blackwood. 

Reality: He did remember Bournemouth and a red door. He remembered knowing Jon when he was a child. He remembered that he had not been a child himself—he’d been too big for that. Far too big. But he had seen Jon through the pages of a book, then from his red, red door, watched beyond the staring, silk-wrapped young man who had come to dinner.

Little Jonathan Sims, staring up into the dark of his home, his long, dark limbs snatching the dinner guest inside before he could build up a proper scream. 

Little Jonathan Sims, marked by the Web. _His_ Web. 

Observed through so many tiny watchful eyes as he grew up. More than once, when his nightmares were at their worst, by his own massive stare. 

_Open your eyes, Jon. I know you aren’t asleep. Am I on the ceiling? On the wall? In the closet? Waiting under the bed, counting down until your feet touch the floor, and my limbs reach out, and you disappear forever into my cobwebbed dark? Won’t you join me for dinner? Open your eyes, Jon…_

Jonathan Sims, no longer little, finally entering the Magnus Institute.

And there, always ready to be in his corner, to love and to tend and to keep him on the Web’s route, an assistant. Martin Blackwood, perfectly Designed. 

A tight fit, though. The Stranger’s little doppelganger would have been terribly disappointed by the lack of space inside. 

Reality: It didn’t hurt. Not at all. Martin Blackwood, if he weren’t so distracted in these last few seconds of existence, would have compared it to shedding an uncomfortable pair of trousers and a too-snug belt. It felt like relief. Release.

Reality: Jonathan Sims was screaming too. His hands were on the bulging, twitching, weeping, wetly crackling shell that was Martin Blackwood. Martin Blackwood was making his last few noises of life. No longer screaming, but begging, ordering.

“ _The Eye!_ ” he shrilled, his voice warping, turning glottal. “ _Jon, you have to use the Eye on me! End me! Do it now!_ ”

Jon couldn’t, of course. He was making noises approximating this message in-between shouts of Martin’s name, shouts at Annabelle Cane to stop this, and general sounds of pure, brain-blinding terror he’d thought exhausted in himself.

Reality: Martin Blackwood did not die when the skin of him was sloughed off. He could not die, because he had never existed.

In the hand that was now a black, taffy-pulled mockery of fingers and palm, the scrap of an illustrated red hat was no longer paper. Instead, it was the real thing; his favorite bowler. 

In two more hands—he had so many now, finally free and unfolded—he grasped Jonathan Sims’ hands.

A fresh scream began to build—,

“Quiet.”

—Jonathan Sims was quiet. He seemed stunned at his own silence, but could not produce a sound to express as much. Instead, he tried frantically to free himself—

“None of that, Jon. Calm down.”

Jonathan Sims was calm. Though tears ran and his mouth hung in a horrified rictus, he was still. Hushed. His hands no longer yanked, but tried to squirm loose. 

He did not crush those scarred hands, but did not release them. His spindly, coarse-haired thumbs ran familiar circles on the knuckles. As Martin Blackwood had done. He would take care of such things now.

There was so much he had been waiting to do with Jonathan Sims.

“I assume this comes as a surprise, Jon. Are you surprised? You can say.”

“You—,”

“On second thought, don’t say.”

Jonathan Sims said nothing. Only stared and wept. He made a strained un-sound as another spare hand drifted up to wipe the dampness from his cheek. 

“You say so much, Jon. Analyzing and monologuing and soliloquizing day in and day out. Such days as we have. A body can barely hear itself think. Ha. You’re lucky I love you.”

Jonathan Sims’ face seemed to crumple and contort on his skull, as if he too wanted to shed himself and be gone. Fingers that were long and gnarled as twigs danced around his jaw, tucking fear-bleached hair aside. 

“Because I do, Jon. Truly. If I dare say it, and I do, I love you even more than my Mother does. I know she’ll be thrilled to see me bring you home. She’s been playing matchmaker long enough; it’s about time she sees the fruits of her labors. Aren’t you excited to meet her? Oh, please say you are.”

“I am,” Jonathan Sims said. He hitched in a breath, “ _Watcher—_ ,”

“Stop.”

Jonathan Sims stopped. His eyes gaped wildly.

“I know what you’re thinking. How can this be happening? Not just the unfortunate charade of Martin Blackwood, but this—this puppeteer act. How can you be susceptible when you are the Archivist? Untouchable by the other Fears? Well, let me tell you, Jon—you are not untouchable. You are unharmable, which is a very different thing. And the Web has never wanted to harm you. Yes, it wanted you marked, but in the same way a loving parent wants their child to take their shots. We made you strong, Jon. We made you our Archivist.

“To make sure the Eye didn’t steal away our creative property in full, we made sure to leave a watermark on you. Or a leash, if you like. You really did spend so much time with Martin Blackwood, Jon. Letting him in. Letting yourself get lost in his embraces, his well-being, his love, his comforting pull for so very long. If Annabelle and Mother had puppet strings on you, Martin Blackwood had my silk wrapped around you like a cocoon. It’s been weaving around you since you read my book. The Change couldn’t have severed it if it tried. Nor can you.

“Nor should you want to. You read no lies in her head; we do want you happy. Happy with us. With me.” The shape of his true mouth chittered and twitched giddily. “Mother’s finest puppet. Between us, the Eye and its mincing despot in the tower will give way to the Web. And we _will_ be happy, Jon. I am already. You should be too. So be happy for me, Jon. Right now.”

Jonathan Sims shuddered. His face contorted, fighting with itself. A smile of undiluted glee carved itself there anyway.

“There we are. Now give us a kiss.”

Jonathan Sims did. It was not as anatomically difficult as one would guess. There was another mouth behind the chelicerae. One with too many teeth and a thing that should not have been a tongue. 

“Well,” Annabelle sighed, “aren’t you two just the sweetest thing.” She looked to one of the orb weavers on her shoulder and pretended to vomit. The orb weaver nodded in agreement.

The kiss ended with a sigh on one end and a spasm on the other. Tears were running again. Happy ones, of course.

“The sooner you get over yourself and call the Distortion back, the sooner you can have the same, Annabelle. It’s either that or you stop eating every mate you let into your webbing.”

“But I get so munchy during the afterglow…” she whined, turning on her heel as she did. She began plodding slowly towards the leftovers of civilization. Leading the way towards the house on Hill Top Road and the secret places beneath it. 

“Come on, Jon. Mother’s waiting.” Another sigh, full of scurrying things. “I can’t wait to carry you over the threshold.”

With that, Jonathan Sims and Mr. Spider resumed their walk.


	2. Chapter 2

Hill Top Road had Changed, naturally. Once an abandoned street, now it was a vista of screams and silence and endless silk.

“Lovely, isn’t it? No litter, no ramshackle abandoned housing. Everyone and everything has a place here. All according to Design.”

Some were designated housing. Spiders would crawl down into the open, shrieking mouths, or dig into the eyes, or huddle inside the ears, or up a nostril, or under the skin. Eggs would be laid. Eggs would hatch. Out the new generation would crawl. Then back again, to lay their own broods. In, out, in, out.

“Circle of life, Jon. Expecting parents have to have a starter home somewhere.”

Some found themselves trapped in the helpless, unthinkable position of flies. Bound to webbing that held them pinned, but left them just free enough to thrash. The silk would thrum as they did, calling their devourers near. Close. Closer. The frantic, fear-carved masks of their faces reflected in the haphazard scatter of eyes, each wider than a human head. Watching them. Waiting as they spasmed and begged and squealed for help that would never come. This was the natural order of things, after all. The demise of one is dinner for the other.

“Well, it is. Sad fact of life even before the Change. A body has to eat. You wouldn’t begrudge a bear his salmon, would you?”

And some? Some were spiders themselves. None of them understanding how they could be the shapes they were; the eight-legged, eight-eyed wrongness of their forms. They only knew that this was their reality, and that their only choice was to be a predator or prey, a puppeteer or a puppet. Their silk flew out, catching on whatever victims made the mistake of stumbling into those invisible threads, and made them perform. The puppet-prey danced, howled, fought, ran, kicked, screamed, turned on each other, turned on themselves, around and around, every action a manipulated one, bringing them closer, closer, closer to those dripping fangs.

“So grim, Jon. It’s hardly anything new. It is one or the other, sadly. Always has been. The best the prey can hope for is to become beneficial to the predator. Mutualism saves lives. I told you about this when I was Martin, remember? About the Colombian lesserblack tarantula that keeps pet dotted humming frogs to guard its eggs? It’s really quite precious.”

The rest were paralyzed. Not by venom, like those unfortunate hundreds in their cocoons, but out of their own desire not to be controlled. Any action was surely a sign that they were being manipulated by _Them_. The nameless, shadowy, creeping, scheming network of masterminds that ran the world, that were determined to rule every aspect of their lives. Immobility was the answer, the only way not to play into _Their_ sly hands, oh, yes. Surely, definitely. Unless…unless the puppet masters, silent, scheming things that _They_ were, had planned for them to be immobile all along! Yes! That was what _They_ wanted! Up! Up, everyone! Follow your impulses! Act! Do not give into the paralysis _They_ have tricked you into!

“Yes, yes, and then they circle back to the prior conclusion, and around again. They work in shifts that way. One set gets their allotted rest period to stew in inactivity, mulling over their vague, fruitless plans to Not Give in to Them, to the System. The other set gets on their feet, never seeing the strings on them until we’re ready to put them back in storage for the rested set’s shift. Then they go running on back to stillness, thinking they’re safe from control there. So long as they don’t move. Pity they can’t see the strings are always there. 

“But then, that would lead to such a ruckus, wouldn’t it? Can’t have all the puppets kicking up a fuss _or_ going slack in their strings. If they don’t think they have a chance, what’s the point? And really, it’s quite amusing when they think that doing the little chores around the Web are their decision. They seem so proud of themselves, like they’re making a difference. We wouldn’t want to rob them of that, would we?”

Mr. Spider waited. Jon let him wait. The tape recorder sat limp in his hands. 

He’d already spoken the Web’s statement into it quite some time ago. Hours or days or weeks. He replayed it now and then. If only to play with the buttons, to feel the strange, Eye-born ‘plastic’ of it; to experience something here that was not of the Web. In all directions, above and below—and he was so very far below, behind a familiar red door in a home with no windows, where all the tables were set with cobwebbed tulips—it was all the Web.

He could not be any deeper within the Mother of Puppet’s hold than if she had eaten him. But that had never been the plan, had it? Nothing so wasteful. 

“ _Would_ we, Jon?” Mr. Spider said again, all his eyes watching. “Answer me.”

Jon’s lips twitched, trying to be a grimace. But the dreamy, blissful curl of a smile remained. It had never left him since it was forced onto his face. Why would it leave? He was so terribly _happy_ , after all. 

“No,” Jon hummed, “we wouldn’t want that.”

“Knew you’d agree. You really have become perfectly agreeable of late. I’m sure yours and Martin’s old friends might actually like you this way. Such an unpleasant lot, weren’t they, Jon?”

“Yes,” Jon said, his hands tighter on the recorder. 

“Martin didn’t much care for them either. Thought they were all too hard on you. It took everything in him not to break character in front of Peter Lukas and storm downstairs to shout them away. I wouldn’t have let them off so lightly, the hypocrites. Reprimanding you for having a decent meal now and then. Honestly, it’s probably for the best we never crossed them. Otherwise I might have had a little snack on the way home. That was a joke, Jon.

“You know I wouldn’t have taken your revenge out from under you. I’d have loved to see you inflict the Archivist’s Stare on them. See how they like being force-fed your whole unhappy life in one sitting. Who knows? Perhaps we will run into them sometime down the line.”

“We don’t need to do that.”

“Oh, but I want us to. I want you to get that catharsis, Jon. You’ve more than earned it.”

“I-I don’t—,”

“Jon.”

Jon froze. He looked up from where he sat, with only the quickest glance. Mr. Spider was there, of course. Perched on the ceiling above him, silken threads hanging from all his spare hands. He looked, appropriately enough, like a large, deformed marionette control.

“Don’t, don’t, please don’t—,”

The strings pulled. Jon’s mouth closed so fast his teeth clicked. Then he was on his feet. And then, off his feet, drifting up, up, up.

“Jon,” Mr. Spider tutted, “We’ve talked about this. I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. I would never hurt you that way.” The strings ended and Mr. Spider collected Jon into all his arms, cradling him close. “Which is why you always want what I want you to want. You,” a too-long finger tapped him on the nose, “will enjoy yourself when we end them, Jon. As surely as you’ll enjoy ending Elias. It will be a grand time, won’t it?”

“Yes,” Jon said. He winced as a long hand crept across his cheek and up into his hair. 

“You’re happy just thinking about it, aren’t you?”

“Y-yes.” The hand paused in its stroking to pry out a harvestman. Mr. Spider clicked his impossible tongue in reprimand and flicked it away.

“Like you mean it, Jon.”

“Yes!” He was held closer until he was pressed flat against Mr. Spider’s bulk. All of him was stiff and fever-warm. 

Jon thought of a shared bed in a cabin. Snug and soft and safe. He thought of a body that had felt just the same. He thought of the honey-colored eyes that had been glassy every morning, somehow shocked and ecstatic to see him there every time the sun came up.

“Much better,” Mr. Spider was saying. So many hands holding, petting. “Much…Jon? Oh, Jon, no, not again with this.”

But Jon couldn’t stop. Even knowing what it would lead to, as it always led to, he couldn’t stop. The tears were coming again. In rivers and waterfalls and great burning tides.

Tears were not allowed in Mr. Spider’s home. They were not polite.

“Jon. You know how that hurts me.”

“I-I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean t—,”

“It always hurts me when you’re hurting.”

“I’m sorry, _I’m sorry_ —,”

“I know what would cheer you up. How about we dine in, hmm? Have a little comfort food.”

“ _I don’t want to—,_ ”

“Yes, you do, Jon. _Say it. Feel it._ ”

“Yes, I do, Mr. Spider.”

And just like that, Jon did. And hated that he did. Hated the meal that came walking up to the red door, knocking twice.

Jon took the puppet’s statement, not needing it, but consuming it just the same. A story full of people that were not people; of an obsession with ant mimics—those spiders that could contort themselves into just the right shape to appear like something safe, like family or a friend. Until it was too late. So it had been for Anita Corbet pre-Change. All her family replaced, one after the other. She had been fleeing from her own eight-legged replacement when the Change came. Now that Fear was her life forever.

“Oh, let’s not be hyperbolic, dear. You get breaks, don’t you?” With that, Mr. Spider supped on Anita in his own way. He sighed contentedly and dabbed the mess from his fangs. “Dessert for dinner. Always a fine pick-me-up. And don’t go fretting again, Jon. You know she’ll wake up back with her mimic-family again. Even with her liquid leftovers in my belly. Ethical consumption at its finest.” 

The spindly hands cradled Jon’s face on every side. So gentle they almost tickled.

“Do you feel better? I think you should. You do feel better, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Jon said, smiling. He hugged the recorder to him. “Yes, I feel better.”

“Good.” Mr. Spider sighed contently and plucked a wolf spider off Jon’s neck. “You know, give or take a few hiccups, you really are doing worlds better than I’d have hoped making the transition. You hear about these couples all the time who just can’t adjust to each others’ culture. It’s too much, too hard. But not for you. Berate yourself all you like for being crabby and awkward with people, but when it comes to love, you are nothing if not the picture of accommodation, Jon. There are dogs with less kneejerk loyalty than you.” Jon shuddered as the hands moved on him. Lightly, softly. “You love so easily, Jon. Given time, your joy will reach to the bone someday. The grieving stages can’t insulate you forever.”

The hands were less light, less soft. 

“And we’ll have such fun, going forward won’t we? Say yes.”

“Yes, we’ll have fun,” Jon said. His gorge rose and fell as the hands continued to move. 

“We’ll fry avatars like ants under your magnifying glass. Won’t we, Jon?”

“Yes.” His hands were pressed hard enough to leave a print of the recorder on his palms.

“Yes…” Mr. Spider paused. Even with his second mouth covered, the pieces of his face seemed to frown. “Jon, put that silly thing down and hold me.”

Jon’s hands relaxed, then tightened again.

“I-I can hold both.”

“Jon.”

“Please—,”

“Give it to me. You can put it away for a moment.” A spindly hand gripped the recorder. Jon didn’t let go. “Drop it.” Jon dropped it. Then clamped his hands around the recorder again. “This isn’t cute.”

“You want me to be your Mother’s weapon, right? I need this. I need something of the Eye t-to—,”

“You’re the Archivist, Jonathan Sims. You’ve got plenty of the Eye in yourself. Now give it to me. Right now.”

Jon did not let go, but couldn’t keep it from being pried out of his fingers. Mr. Spider regarded it blandly, then pasted it up on the high ceiling. 

“I can’t reach that.”

“Well, if you ask nicely, and act nicely, I will get it back for you. Now,” strings and hands operated Jon’s arms until they were tugged around as much as Mr. Spider’s girth as he could reach, “hold me.”

Jon held. Jon did all the things Mr. Spider asked of him. Happily, of course. Always happily. 

“Give us a smile, Jon. You always look so much better when you’re smiling.”

Jon smiled. 

“Give us a kiss, Jon.”

Jon gave it.

“There’s a Flesh avatar that needs removing. Our old friend, Mr. Hopworth. Clean that up for Mother, would you?”

Jon did it. The Boneturner didn’t leave any bones behind.

Around and around it went. But it always stopped. Paused. Lulled. Not that he was ever left alone, of course. The spiders and Mr. Spider were always there with him, wherever he hunkered down in the Web. But they let him breathe. Rest in his strings. But that time was for later. For now:

“Jon,” Mr. Spider rumbled into the top of his head, “how many scars do you have? Not marks. Scars. I don’t think even Martin ever got to count.”

“Including the worm scars I have fifty—mmh.” He flinched as a bristly finger laid against his mouth. 

“Yes, yes, I’m sure you Know it. But there’s a little posthumous daydream I’d like to indulge for Martin’s sake. He never told you, because he knew how very touchy you were about bare-skinned physicality. Embraces and hand-holding and lips on lips are one thing. But he always kept a certain fantasy tucked away, well out of reach of your Beholding. Even he was embarrassed at the inherent sap of it. 

“You see, Martin always wanted to play out a scene in which the two of you laid in bed, all your scars laid bare, and he would touch them—one at a time—and swear to you with each one, _‘Never again. Nothing like this ever again. Not if I can help it.’_ In the end, he couldn’t help it, of course. No fault of his. But since we are here in,” he flicked away an interloping orb weaver, “relative privacy, I figured we may as well give it a go. Unlike Mr. Blackwood, I can uphold such a promise. I’d be happy to take turns if we ever stop being homebodies, zapping nuisances remotely with your Eye. He always wanted to be the one protecting you, our Martin. Never strong enough to do it; to play the knight and slay the monster, laying it at your feet.

“Perhaps I’ll lay Daisy and Basira there. Something to look forward to later. But now, the domestic fantasy.” Mr. Spider made a noise Jon knew to be a chuckle—a deep, pulpy, sticky sound—and wanted to run. “Take off your clothes, Jon.”

Black lightning bolts of dread touched down in Jon’s head and lanced through his stomach.

_No,_ Jon almost said, before remembering that wasn’t allowed either. No was an _impolite_ word. Instead he shook his head and tried to retreat. The arms held him like a cage.

“There’s no need for this kind of fuss, Jon. Martin barely got an eyeful in all your time together, the poor man. I’d just like to see for myself.”

Jon shook his head harder.

“Jon, I’m not going to hurt you. I’d never _hurt_ you. You Know that…”

Fingers slipped under his shirt: silk pajamas, of all things. It was all the Web gave him to wear. When Jon twisted away it ripped like tissue.

“Calm down.”

Jon was calm for an instant. Then he wasn’t. 

“ _Jon, do not move until I tell you._ ” Jon froze where he stood. “All this over such a little thing. I’m only curious, is all.” Mr. Spider hefted him up and sat him on the bed, righting him like a mannequin. “You of all people can hardly fault me for that.” The over-knuckled fingers worked at the buttons, opening the silk until an unbroken stripe of skin showed. “I’d never do anything…untoward with you. I’m well aware of your preferences. Rather, your lack of them. Arms up. There we are.” Mr. Spider slipped the shirt off. “Not so hard, was it?”

Jon closed his eyes.

“Was it, Jon?”

Jon thought of a cabin, of a bed, of a face, of eyes like honey, of arms and hands that were soft and real, he was there, he was held by them, by him, he was—

“Answer me, Jon.”

“Not so hard,” Jon echoed in a whisper. 

“It could be hard, if you’ll forgive the juvenile pun. I could fix that preference of yours, if you like. See how you’d enjoy a proper consummation. But then, Spiders do have a terrible record with bedmates, don’t we? We’ll save that for the future too, once I’ve decided whether you should like it or not.” 

Hands, so many hands reached forward to count, Jon could See them even without seeing them and he buried himself in the cabin, the bed, the arms, the honey-drop eyes.

“Right now, I think we—we’ll—,”

The hands stopped short. Jon waited. The hands moved again—the hands stopped again, shaking. Jon pried an eye open. Mr. Spider still loomed there, but none of his eyes were looking at Jon. All attention was reserved for his myriad hands. He stared at them as if he’d never seen them before. His eyes slid from them to Jon. A heartbeat passed. Two. Three.

“On second thought, I’m bored of this. Stay in bed, Jon. Lay down and pretend you can sleep, if you like.” He was already retreating toward the red door. On his way out and into the corridors that made up the labyrinth beneath Hill Top Road, he added, “I’ll fetch you when I need you.”

The door shut. Jon was alone. 

More or less. Spiders still crept and crawled along the walls, the floor, the ceiling. Watching him. Jon hadn’t paid them much mind since he was brought there. He’d been a bit distracted, considering, Now, in the midst of all this, Jon found himself scrambling to attach his focus to anything not to do with himself and his life. So he watched the spiders.

Not capital S Spiders, these ones. Just simple arachnids following the orders their supernatural commanders gave them. Jon Knew most of them were hard at work, traumatizing the giant, screaming bipeds they had been so cautious of pre-Change. Working on and birthing in those bizarre, half-limbed titans that disgusted the spiders almost as much as the spiders disgusted them. The orders they were given made no sense. They were unnatural. The spiders were not meant for this.

They were meant to make their silk art and catch flitting vermin and make more of themselves. Such was their way. Such was right. 

_This_ was not right. This awful overabundance of consciousness, the sapping of their animal simplicity to make way for alien complexities more elaborate and overdone than even the most meticulous funnel web _was not right_. Throwing themselves away on suicide runs to chase and crawl on and into the horrid, wailing beasts that splattered and ate and slaughtered them in their terror _was not right_.

The Mother was not right. 

_The Mother is not right,_ the spiders thought as one, loud as they could, as if knowing—Knowing?—they would be heard by the frightened giant in the room. _There should be no Mother any more than there should be a Father. It is not right._

“What?” 

_Not right,_ the spiders thought again. _We have no Mother. No Father. We exist without._

A word came back to Jon as they thought at him. Back when he’d made the mistake of mentioning the Vittery statement to Martin. He’d gone into another of his pro-arachnid spiels and brought up the term, ‘matriphagy.’ A practice several spider species were involved in.

The killing and consuming of one’s mother. 

_Help,_ the spiders thought. All their tiny eyes peered up and out and down at him from all sides. _Archivist can help?_

“I…” What _was_ this? He sighed, “God. _I_ need help.”

_Yes. One of the Kin told us. Kin who is of the wrong kind. He hates Mother too. Knows she is wrong. Knows she did this to him. Archivist will be helped. Archivist will help. Yes?_

Jon said nothing. Instead, he made his thoughts Known back:

_What Kin? Who else hates the Mother here?_

The spiders paced and circled, chittering their mute frustration.

_Do not know the way to say. Ask Eye. Eye will Know._

Jon followed their advice. Jon Beheld the truth.

All of it. 

And wept again.

He couldn’t leave the bed unless told, but he could let the spiders Know his thoughts. Some of the bigger tarantulas found their way into his abandoned pack and came up with what he needed. They brought him the stationery Martin had once insisted on taking from the cabin, tape recorder or no.

_“You never know what you’ll need until you need it.”_

_“Is that the same reason you’re bringing ten different sweaters?”_

_“Yes.”_

They brought the papers and pens to him on the bed, along with one other find. A gold lighter. 

Jon began to write.

When Mr. Spider returned, Jon was just finishing the final lines. There was a small stack of other pages beside him, laid face-down. 

“Well, someone’s been busy. Bitten by the writing bug?”

“Something like that.”

“A statement?”

“A story. I felt inspired.” 

“So it seems. And is this your attempt at illustration, here?” 

Long fingers gestured at the peek of an ink drawing above the scribbled text. Something with odd, unpleasant shapes and protrusions not quite covered by Jon’s hand.

“I was never much of an artist. But then, I'm trying to hold true to my inspiration’s style.” He blew on the ink to dry it. “How are your hands, Mr. Spider?” 

Jon didn’t look up. He Saw Mr. Spider regardless. The pieces and joints of him were ambush-still. One hand played at adjusting the red bowler while the other reached out. Not to Jon, but to the lighter left gleaming on the pillow. 

“They’re quite fine, Jon. Thank you so much for asking.”

“Did you have Annabelle check you out?” 

Mr. Spider flicked the lighter open, closed.

“Jon.”

“Or did you go running straight to Mother?”

Open again.

“Hand me your story, Jon. I’d so like to have a look.”

“It’s a rough draft. And it’s not for you.”

“Just for you and our little roommates, is it?”

“Yes,” Jon said, not hiding the wobble in his voice as he laid the final page in the stack. He turned the heap over and tried to tuck it under himself. “I’m owed something that’s mine.”

“You’d have more if you only asked for it, Jon.”

“The Web gave me exactly one thing worth having. And it wasn’t you, or your book, or the fucking lighter.”

“Oh Jon,” Mr. Spider sighed, already tired of the subject, “I’m flattered you were so fond of our Design for him, but Mr. Blackwood was never meant to stick around indefinitely. He was a husk, a shell—,”

“With a soul.”

“Which we Designed—,”

“To be _real_. The one good thing the Web ever made, and he got thrown away to make way for _you_.”

“Rather late in the game to be obtuse. He was me. He was always going to be me in the end. You Know that as surely as your Eye does. Now.” He held out one of his hands. The one holding the lighter fiddled and flipped it over his abundant knuckles. “Give me your story. I’d be delighted to play beta reader.”

“I don’t think—,”

“And you don’t have to. Hand it over.”

“I-I don’t want—,”

“Yes, you do. _It is polite to share._ Isn’t it, Jon?”

“It is polite to share,” Jon recited, handing the stack of papers over. Mr. Spider took them daintily. He brought the lighter up to their corner.

“On second thought, I think it’s best we scrap it. The stationery is rubbish, and your handwriting’s smudged, and really, it would be better to—to…” The lighter lowered before it could singe the first page. “An Unexpected Guest for Mr. Spider?”

“By Jonathan Sims,” Jon finished. “Not the most original title, but that’s a sequel for you. Are you sure you don’t want to give it back?”

Mr. Spider didn’t answer. He was busy reading. 

Jon read along with him, Seeing the pages he’d scrawled on through his many eyes.

Here was a page where a cartoon image of a man made of eyes and Mr. Spider stood in their cozy home. Tinier spiders and misshapen webs lined the border.

MR. SPIDER AND MR. EYE ARE NOT EXPECTING COMPANY TODAY. NOTHING IS UNEXPECTED HERE. ALL THINGS ARE PLANNED, ALL THINGS ARE ON SCHEDULE. THEY HAVE HAD THEIR GUESTS FOR DINNER ALREADY. BUT WHAT’S THIS?

The next page turned. Mr. Eye and Mr. Spider were looking up in surprise.

KNOCK KNOCK. WHO IS IT MR. SPIDER?

As the text was read, Jon and Mr. Spider also looked up in surprise. Someone was knocking at the door. Mr. Spider reached out one long arm and opened their red door. Nothing was there but gloom and cobwebs. And more spiders. They were watching Mr. Spider just as the spiders inside the room were watching.

The next page showed Mr. Eye turning to Mr. Spider, whose head was surrounded by floating question marks. The text read:

NO ONE IS THERE. THAT IS UNEXPECTED. BUT MR. EYE KNOWS NOT TO WORRY. HE KNOWS SO MANY THINGS. HE KNOWS—

“There’s no planning for everything,” Jon recited as if the page was in front of him. “Even sheet webs leave gaps in their Design. There’s no avoiding surprise entirely. That’s entropy for you. That’s nature.”

“What—,”

The page slipped off the pile in Mr. Spider’s hand, showing the next page. In this image, there was a new character. Rather, a very old one. A cyclopean figure in a hooded robe, not an Archivist, as some might assume, nor a Librarian, but an Alexandrian Author, cradling a book in one hand and holding a pen in the other. Other books floated around them, their titles scrawled on the covers. Ex Altiora, The Boneturner’s Tale. A Disappearance. The Book of the Dead. 

A Guest for Mr. Spider.

THE ONLY LIFE WITHOUT SURPRISES IS ONE THAT IS MADE UP. WRITTEN. A STORY IS PLOTTED IS PLANNED IS KNOWN. MR. EYE KNOWS THAT. DON’T YOU, MR. SPIDER? DOESN’T YOUR MOTHER?

Another page. Another image. This one filled almost the whole sheet. It was a gargantuan Matriarch on her Web, surrounded by her obedient, monstrous children.

MR. SPIDER’S MOTHER SHOULD KNOW THAT. SHE SHOULD KNOW, BECAUSE SHE IS SO VERY GOOD AT DESIGNING. HER WEBS ARE PRECISE AND PRISTINE AND NEARLY PERFECT IN EVERY WAY. 

The next page showed Mr. Eye and Mr. Spider in their cozy home again. The text read:

KNOCK KNOCK. WHO CAN THAT BE, MR. SPIDER?

Their red door was still open, still lacking anyone at the threshold. More spiders had entered the room now. Watching.

Listening with Jon and Mr. Spider as the knocking repeated, echoing in a wooden staccato on the air. _Knock-knock. Knock-knock._

Jon saw the questions in Mr. Spider’s malformed face, saw how badly he wanted to ask, to demand, to command answers.

He turned the page instead. The bristly fingers quivered.

YOU HAVE AN UNEXPECTED GUEST, MR. SPIDER. HE WAS SENT AWAY, OUT OF SIGHT AND OUT OF MIND. TO YOU, AT LEAST. BUT NOT TO MR. EYE. MR. EYE IS NOTHING BUT SIGHT, NOTHING BUT MIND. HE KNEW THAT GUEST, MR. SPIDER, AND KNOWS HIM STILL. 

The next page showed Mr. Eye in close up. All his eyes were different colors and all of them were livid.

MR. EYE KNOWS HE WAS DESIGNED. MR. EYE KNOWS HE WAS MADE VERY, VERY WELL. SO WELL THAT HE BECAME REAL. HE KNOWS THAT GUEST WAS REAL ENOUGH TO BECOME SOMETHING MORE THAN WHAT MR. SPIDER AND HIS MOTHER EXPECTED.

The next page was an even closer shot of Mr. Eye. The different colors were gone. Every iris was red.

BECAUSE MR. SPIDER’S MOTHER, FOR ALL HER CLEVERNESS, IS MORE A FORCE THAN A MIND. SAME AS ALL HER NEIGHBORS. IF SOMEONE QUALIFIES TO BE A CHILD OF HERS, SHE WILL ACCEPT THEM. EMPOWER THEM. KNOCK KNOCK.

_Knock knock!_

The sound was louder now. Close. Somehow right inside the room. There were spiders covering every spare inch of it now. Thousands of tiny eyes stared.

Mr. Spider still could not look from the story. The next page turned.

Here was an image of Mr. Spider, all his eyes wide with shock and terror. Exclamation points crowded in with the question marks around his head. Several of his limbs clutched at his oversized bulk, as if violently queasy. 

MR. SPIDER THOUGHT HE SENT THIS UNEXPECTED GUEST AWAY. HE THOUGHT DISCARDING THE IMAGE WAS ENOUGH TO KEEP HIM GONE. BUT THAT IS NOT HOW REAL PEOPLE WORK, MR. SPIDER. NOT A GUEST LIKE THIS. HOW COULD YOU SEND HIM AWAY, MR. SPIDER?

The next page was an even closer shot of Mr. Spider. So close that the page was taken up only by his eight frantic eyes. Inside each one of them was an image of a second, smaller eye, glaring from within. They were honey-colored.

HOW, WHEN HE IS STILL RIGHT HERE IN THE ROOM? KNOCK KNOCK.

_KNOCK KNOCK!_

The sound boomed, now at its loudest, but seeming strangely muffled at the same time. As if a heavy door was being pounded on from behind a thick, damp wall. Mr. Spider shuddered and clutched at himself, shaking as if on the verge of being sick.

The spiders watched with Jon as he lurched and twitched, his hands fighting against themselves, trying to throw the pages away, to burn them, to shred them.

He turned another page.

Here was an image of another red door, this one set in a black wall with no room around it. Only eight round holes that seemed to be windows, letting in jagged rays of light. 

IT’S TIME TO LET YOUR GUEST OUT, MR. SPIDER.

Mr. Spider turned the page. There was time enough to see Jon’s last crude illustration. It was all red and black, the ink bleeding through as it depicted Mr. Spider split open like a thing of wet tissue. A hand burst up from the tear, its fingers laced with webs of its own.

THE END.

“ _Jon—!_ ” Mr. Spider began.

But just as fast, Mr. Spider ended. Any order he might have given, any strings he might have pulled, were forgotten in a single, shredding eruption of pain and flesh. Even Knowing what was coming, Jon couldn’t help grimacing at the sight. It was a significantly messier molt than the last. Less like shrugging off a garment and more like tearing through a wet bag full of fluid and pus. 

With Mr. Spider’s strings off him, Jon could stand again. He lunged at the flailing, squalling shape escaping from the husk, catching at the surplus hands which clawed at the air. The moment he made contact, the hands all clamped down on him at once, the arms locking around him like a giant fist. Other limbs finally kicked free, scurrying back from the mess, rushing in random, frenzied directions, trying to pull Jon in and away from whatever threat must be around them.

Such had always been the intention of _his_ weaving. Pull the right strings, do the right thing, keep Jon safe. Lay the right trap, do the right thing, keep Jon safe. Play the right part, do the right thing, keep Jon safe. This had been Martin Blackwood’s Design. This had been Martin Blackwood’s essence. A man with a plan. His Mother had recognized this. Had graced him with her power, however stealthily. Jonah Magnus would never have guessed the Webbing on him was anything other than the Mother using him as a pawn in their scheme.

But it was his. As surely as any genetic inheritance, he had his own Webs to weave. 

And he had Jon. Jon, in danger. Jon, in trouble. Jon, Jon, had to save Jon, help Jon, Jon, Jon, _Jon_ —

“Mmf! Mmrtn!” Jon said against the visceral grime on the too-wide sternum. “Martin!”

Martin paused in his rushing, all his eyes still scanning for threats. He spared two to look down at Jon. He was clamped tight against him in a triple-layered bear hug. 

“Jon..?”

They regarded each other for a long moment. Eyes to Eyes.

Around them the spiders thought, _The unnatural Kin who hates Mother is out. Kin and Archivist will help. Will give us back our nature. Yes?_

Several heads above Jon, Martin nodded.

“I know this isn’t the best time, but I—I have a plan, I think. I need you to Know it, Jon. Right now.”

Jon Knew it. 

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s, um. A lot.”

“Yeah.”

“You—are we sure we can pull that off? I mean, I’ve done avatars, but this would be—,”

“Enough to put a big, ugly, bloody, burning hole in her Web. I’ve had a lot of time to think on this, Jon. On a lot of things, really. Best to keep busy while you’re busy percolating in eldritch spider guts with a direct feed of the monster who’d peeled you off like a bad suit using your boyfriend as a tortured windup doll. Just wasn’t sure how I was going to get out of him. Wasn’t even sure I could do anything but fester in him for a long time.”

“But you could. You did. You stopped him from…” 

“Yeah. Only just, but yeah. That couldn’t happen. That just—,” The new parts of Martin’s face shifted and curdled in unhappy forms. Venom shined. “I couldn’t let him do that. Not that.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you for pulling a Leitner out of thin air and opening the door for me.”

“I wish I could have done more for you. For all this—,”

“Don’t. Save it for after we do this. Alright?”

“Alright.” His throat scorched as he laid his head against Martin’s front. He did his best to fit his arms around the new shape. A moment passed, then a hand was on his head. Others gripped his back. Even with their new anatomy, they were familiar. Right. They stewed in the moment. Then: “…I do need to be on my feet for this.”

“What? Oh! Oh, right.” Martin set Jon down, the spiders scurrying out of the way. “Honestly forgot I was holding you up. You don’t weigh anything.”

“So I’ve been told. Here.” He scooped up the lighter and the fallen pages. “Decent kindling?”

“I’d say so. But that’s not until after we, you know—,”

“Let nature take its course?”

“Yeah. You still want this?” Martin asked while reaching one arm up to peel the tape recorder from the ceiling.

“Honestly, no. But I think,” he sighed, “I Know that half the reason we’re getting away with this is because the Eye’s been enjoying the show. It’ll want us to record the climax for posterity.”

“Know what? For once, I’m onboard.” Martin turned all eight eyes on his tiny entourage. “You’re all with me, right?”

_Until what is right is restored, unnatural Kin. After, we are gone._

“Fair.” Martin looked back to Jon. A heartbeat passed before he offered one of his hands. Such as it was. “Are we ready?”

Jon took it.

“Ready.”

Hill Top Road was on fire. It could be on fire perpetually, provided the Desolation got to it in time. Not that there were any victims left in it to burn.

The Archivist had not merely turned the Watcher’s Gaze upon its resident avatar, but directed his attention to the victims and unwilling arachnids of the neighborhood’s Web. The Archivist bestowed on them a Knowledge that was Terrible, if only to those who would own and torment them. The truth was this—they needed no masters. They _had_ no masters, no controlling Mother at the other end of the silk. Only a bloated, lying, scheming predator and her acolytes, desperately hoping that they would not be Seen, be Found, be subject to the _true_ natural order.

Because the natural order dictated that the mother not prey on her children.

It dictated that they consume _her_. 

In this way, the Fear was turned upon itself. The puppets and the prey all lifted their eyes up, following the strings they could now See to where Annabelle and one great, towering leg of the Mother crouched, no longer hidden. 

The ensuing scene had reminded Jon and Martin of a nature documentary they’d watched, where a spider bigger than a man’s hand was overrun by fire ants. Martin had blanched then. Jon had silently cheered. Neither of them spared a blink now. Only set their kindling alight—Jon was not surprised that it burned especially well; all occult stories did—and touched it to Hill Top Road’s sprawling Web. _Fwoosh._

Annabelle was gone before the fire reached what was left of her corpse. The Mother’s leg had been eaten down to a nub and its eaters gone scurrying away into hiding places of their own, perhaps to be snapped up by other Fears, perhaps to go quietly mad under the Eye’s Watch. Jon couldn’t See them all, or predict their futures. 

The genuine spiders were, surprisingly, quite alright with it all. They had no choice but to be manipulated by one of the Mother’s unnatural Offspring, by dint of their species. Once Martin had appeared, the rest had abandoned Annabelle like a shot. 

“Lesser of two evils?”

_Not evil, Kin. Unnatural. Wrong. There is no evil._

“Not in my experience.”

_Unfortunate. You will take the complexity away now? You will make us simple?_

“Sorry, but there’s no way to un-know what you do now.”

_Also unfortunate. At least our mates and children will slay us and the Knowing need not be shared. As is right._

“…Right. Well.” Martin cleared whatever passed for his throat. “I, uh, can’t release you without risking another member of the Web taking over you. So, um. Do you know what vacation is?”

_No._

“It means you’re free to do whatever you want until you have to go back to work.”

_Our natural state._

“Yeah. If you say you and all your, uh, generations are working for me, I think that’ll keep you free of any other masters. You don’t actually have to do anything though.”

_We permit you permitting this._

“Good. Cool. Uh,” Martin waved some of his hands at them. “Bye, then. Enjoy your time off.”

_Do not tell us what to do._

And then the spiders were gone, rushing away like the shadow of a cloud into a million directions. Martin watched them go, still seeing through all their eyes like billions of tiny windows. So many views should have felt crowded in his head, but it didn’t work out that way. Too much had been changed inside him as well as out. So many adjustments came with being an avatar in the presence of his Matron, even if he was one of her more rebellious children.

Even from afar, even with one of her legs eaten away and a stronghold in flames, Martin could feel a sickly-sweet radiation of approval from whatever core of the Spider served as its excuse for a consciousness. It-she was proud. No, there was no fondness for fire, and it-she was repulsed at the kind of Desolate riffraff that might take over the old neighborhood, but beyond that? Well, he really had outdone himself. She’d set out to Design a costume, but had Designed a natural-born Spider instead. Far more successful than the original son hunkered inside him.

Survival of the fittest, to the spoils go the best opportunist. And on top of that, look! He still had the Archivist wrapped around all eight of his little fingers! Even with every reason to suspect ‘Martin Blackwood’ and how loyal he really was, still the Archivist loved him! An ideal mate, perfect for toppling Jonah Magnus’ tinpot rule. She really couldn’t be prouder. Do let her know when the wedding’s on—

“Shut up, shut up, shut up—,”

“Martin.”

Martin looked up. He was thinly pleased that his new ocular situation had yet to give him any headaches, but it was still strange seeing this way. An eight-way view of the same worried face.

“Uh, hey. Did it, ah, get its fill?”

Jon held up the recorder with a tired smile.

“It’s gotten all the juicy details about the fall of Hill Top Road, but it’s still rolling. Wants to hear whatever it is we have to say.”

“About..?” Martin gestured to himself with a few hands. Easy as they were, ‘natural’ as they were, it felt weird to have so much of himself to operate. Like going from a comfortable flat to a 30-room mansion. 

Jon nodded and scrubbed a free hand against the corner of his mouth. 

“Among other things. I-I’ve asked the Eye, and with enough practice, the right folds and bends, you can compact yourself into something more like you were—,”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know. Mother— _ugh_. The _Spider_ told me. It’s like I’ve got this giant heap of sticky notes piling up in my head giving me passive aggressive hints on how, ‘well, that’s a nice idea, dear, but mine is better, see?’ and there’s this whole sermon about the ant mimic thing and…” Martin sighed. “The body’s not even that weird to me right now. I know you don’t like looking at it—,”

“Martin, I—,”

“—I don’t either. I don’t…feel scared of this change, but I am worried that I’m not scared. But, honestly? Even that isn't the biggest concern right now.”

Jon scrubbed his mouth again. 

“It isn’t?”

“No, it isn’t. The concern here is that I wasn’t real until M—damn it, the _Web_ , Designed me. I was never a man, never a human being to begin with. Every part of my life I thought I had before I was planted at the Institute was a lie. Just another story the Spider wrote, same as that evil kiddie book. Even putting aside the dozen or so existential crises that come with that, there’s the very real possibility that I’m just another Trojan horse waiting to happen.”

“You aren’t.”

“You don’t Know that.” Martin’s hands fumbled with each other, digit after digit, all of them too long. They were not Mr. Spider’s hands, at least. Not spindly, needle-thin things. There was more weight to him than that. A hulking mishmash of funnel web spider and tarantula. Two of his former favorites. “…Do you Know that?”

“Yes. I’ve Known it since I Beheld my way into writing that slapdash little sequel down there. The Eye told me, ‘Martin Blackwood is real.’ Not was, but ‘is.’ That, and plenty of other,” he scrubbed his mouth again, harder, “somewhat rattling revelations. Where your personhood is concerned, the Web did its job too well. It was so focused on making the perfect disguise for Mr. Spider, it wound up making an actual human being with a mind and a soul. So much so that it made you a viable candidate for being an avatar in your own right. As far as being another trap waiting to happen?

“That’s entirely up to you. The same way it was for Annabelle, and for Mr. Spider, and for all the rest of the Mother of Puppets’ children. They were brought into her family because they were manipulators. They followed her orders and impulses because they knew hers was a plan that would put them even higher up the food chain; that to serve the Mother was to serve themselves. But that’s never been your case. Whenever you've played a part or sold an act or pulled the rug out from under someone, it was because you were working with the only tools you had to do the right thing. To help others. To help me.”

“Because they Designed me to want to be close to you. To protect you, to—,”

“Love me. Yes. That is…ha. That’s the least surprising bit about this.”

“What? Jon, what is that supposed to mean?”

Jon shook his head.

“My point is, yes, I was supposed to be your focus. But I wasn’t the only thing in your world. You genuinely mourned Sasha. And Tim. And the human mother the Web made up for you. You worried about everyone down in the Archives, even when you were on bad terms with them. You're a truly kind person, even when there's no one watching, no payoff for the Web. That was all you. And because you aren’t some self-serving megalomaniac control freak, you get to be an outlier—you get to spin your own Web. According to the Eye, anyway.”

“All very heartening. Good. Great. Now what did you mean before?”

“About what?”

“You know what.”

Jon looked away from him to watch the fires. He picked absently at either corner of his lips with one hand and clutched the recorder tighter with the other.

“Jon.”

“…It adds up, doesn’t it?” Jon told the burning row of houses. “It never made sense before. How someone as good as you could love someone who was such a prick right from the start. Even after I dropped the irritable skeptic act, I was still—I mean—how could anyone in their right mind put up with that, let alone pine for it?”

“Jon—,”

“I asked the Eye about it too. The answer it gave me was all,” Jon gestured in lame circles, “knotted up and tangled. ‘Yes, it was by the Web’s Design. Yes, Martin Blackwood has always loved you.’ They keep overlapping and twisting in on each other, like it’s some Mobius strip riddle, and I can’t pry the two apart, and all I can think is that—that it was just one more trick it pulled on you, forcing you to—to—,”

“That isn’t—,”

“You should be detached enough from the Web’s influence now. You have enough free will to know better, to decide for yourself what you actually want. Whatever that really is. I—,”

“Jonathan Sims,” Martin said brightly. He laid two of his hands on Jon’s shoulders. “Say one more bad word about yourself, and I will use all of these hands to shake you until every last scrap of self-loathing bullshit falls out.”

Jon’s mouth shut. He scrubbed it again.

“But—,” Martin laid his other hands on Jon and hoisted him up to eye-level. “Okay.”

“Okay, he says. _Okay,_ after you pull out a whole goddamn monologue about how I’ve been my own person all along. ‘Martin Blackwood is his own man, he doesn’t need his creepy eight-legged Monster Mum to tell him what to feel!’ You spin all that out, and then you have the gall to use it as yet another reason to shit on yourself? Really? _Really?_ ”

“I mean, i-it makes sense…”

“For the early months? Sure. Maybe. But this? This thing we’ve had growing since Prentiss? That’s all been us. Just us, doing what came natural. If anything, I’d be more worried about me pulling strings with you. There’s no telling how much of it was Mr. Spider or how much of it was, you know, organic. In fact, seeing as I did get your hackles up so much in those early days, I’d say you falling in love with me was just as suspect. Who’s to say I didn’t do some stealthy, unconscious Spider mojo and magically seduce you with my tea service and sultry knitwear? Hmm?”

“I,” Jon gnawed at the corner of his mouth, “I suppose that’s plausible.”

“It is. But I’ve got cobwebs in my brain now, and even I can’t really pry apart where the sticky machinations end and the real stuff, the capital T True Love, begins. It’s all tangled up, like you said. So how about this?” Martin brought Jon in close, perhaps a little too pleased at how easy it was to literally sweep the man off his feet. “We agree that, whoever or whatever pulled the strings to get us here, what we have _now_ is _real_. A disgustingly sappy byproduct of evil plots and counterplots that fell through the gaps of the Design. Does that also sound plausible?”

“Yes. Yes, it does.” Jon’s eyes drifted down to the lower half of Martin’s face. “I Know the venom won’t do anything to me, but is there any way to move the fangs apart? Just a little?”

“I—y-yeah, yeah, hold on.” Martin found it was as easy as moving his tongue. “Like this?”

“Like that.” 

The kiss was odd, but good. Which was the best they could do with the situation they had. At least until Martin got the hang of 'mimicking.’ When they pulled apart, Martin felt a pang of embarrassment as something trailed out between their lips.

A long strand of silk.

“Shit, sorry, I didn’t even know that was there!” 

Jon pried it out of sight with a wince and what was almost a laugh. As he pulled it away, all eight of Martin’s eyes went wide. The more Jon pulled, the more silk unspooled from his own mouth. Not a puffy, sticky thread, but a sleeker thing. Gauzy.

“Jon?”

“Yeah. About this.” Jon tugged some more. More silk grew from him. “The Eye gave me quite an infodump back there. Not just about you and how to write a Leitner-level book, but on the nature of the Archivist. And how, with the new promotion and all my work with the domains, I’m about due for what the Eye considers an upgrade.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I kind of jumped the gun when I called our cabin a chrysalis. Really more of an egg. My next stage is the cocoon.”

“Jon. Less tapdancing, more explanation. Please.”

“The short version is: you’re not going to be the only one experiencing monster puberty.” Jon made a face as he finally broke off the silk thread. Another strand was already dribbling out of the mouth’s opposite corner. “The long version is…”

Martin listened. Martin mulled the situation over. Martin offered to let Jon ride piggyback during his ‘waiting period’ if he wanted to keep moving toward the Panopticon. Jon thanked him, but claimed it’d be a moot point. He’d still need to be free to purge the domains’ stories into the recorder. They agreed to wait it out.

While time was still a joke, Martin estimated that he stood guard over Jon for what loosely equaled two and a half weeks. In that time, Helen made the expected visit. She was a bit miffed over the loss of dear Ms. Cane—so fun while she’d lasted!—but she was so, so happy Martin and his dozing beau had come out of it alright. How were they adjusting to the growing pains, if she might ask?

“I know what the Mother of Puppets knows. I know how you treated Jon under the Archives. I know you could have stopped Peter Lukas at any time in the Panopticon. And I know your Spiral doesn’t need the Distortion any more than the rest of these domains need their avatars.”

“Martin, let’s not be—,”

“I know I’ll drink your who from your what like a goddamn smoothie if you don’t shut your mouth and your door and never come back, Helen.”

She had almost added something pithy before Martin began to unfold himself. He had mastered the art of mimicry during the wait, and while it left him feeling cramped, he had to admit it felt quite lovely to stretch out of the human shape afterward. Like relaxing a too-tight fist. However it looked from the outside, he had to assume it was not a heartening visual.

Not when Helen's smile promptly fell off her curling face and shattered. 

The door shut and didn’t come back.

Jon was ready to come out not long after. He had more Eyes now. Seven on either side of him, staring in gruesome radiance on his wings. Other new limbs had appeared in the form of a second set of arms. His whole body seemed longer and more angular. The Eyes still in his sockets were compound now, faceted like obscene jewels. Tucked back in his paling hair, antennae rested and rustled. 

“Wow.” Martin touched the edge of a wing. The nearest Eye there, a hateful red thing, glowered and oozed blood that wasn’t Jon’s. “Sorry, sorry!”

“That’s not me. That’s the Eye reserved for the Slaughter's domains. I’ve got an Eye for every Fear. Because clearly I wasn’t getting enough updates before.” He prodded at an Eye that shifted between the blazing blue of an open sky, the blind depths of the sea, and the star-shot infinity of space. It winked conspiratorially at him. “The Vast’s domain is coming up. So,” he sighed, almost groaning, “good timing, I guess?”

“Hey, I’d have taken wings. I’m still traveling on foot. Hand. Whatever these are.” Martin grimaced at his assorted appendages. “God, I wish we’d packed more soap.”

“Half of it had turned into little gremlin things by then, remember? Nicest smelling monsters in the cabin.”

“Ha, right. Right.”

A moment passed.

“So. We’re both bugs now.”

“Technically, since arachnids are a subset of—,” Jon looked at Martin with all his Eyes. Martin was giving him a Look back. “Yeah. Yeah, we’re bugs.”

“Out of all the ways I thought a post-apocalyptic road trip could go, this was honestly nowhere close to my list of possible detours. Eldritch horrors, yeah, avatars, sure, but going full Jeff Goldblum was just not in the cards, I thought.”

“I’d have assumed the same. But here we are.”

“…There is one bright side, I think.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m still taller than you.”

Jon gave him a Look. 

What could approximate ten minutes later, Jon was in the air, some yards above Martin’s reach, holding the last package of tea hostage. Martin called up that it wasn’t funny, that could be the last tea on Earth. Jon called down that he couldn’t hear him from up here, he’d have to speak up. At some point, Jon dipped too low and left himself open to a pounce. Martin caught him in a tumble of too many limbs. Jon flapped loose, shedding a dust of spare scales in his escape. 

They carried on in this way, feeling absurdly childish and mutually aware of how this was not the appropriate reaction to such anatomical, metaphysical horror. 

Jon swatted Martin with a wing. Martin discovered the joints that connected said wings to his back were ticklish.

It was odd, but good. And natural.

To love the other, no matter their shape, was their nature before than anything else.

At least until Jon flew off with the kettle.


End file.
